Shakespeare and Happiness. By Kathleen French

Abstract

This book contributes significantly to the field of Shakespeare and the emotions, a growing area of scholarly interest over the last two decades. It began with studies of the body and the influence of Galenic physiology, such as Michael Schoenfeldt’s Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England (1999), Gail Kern Paster’s Humoring the Body (2004), and Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson’s Reading the Early Modern Passions (2004). French, like many engaged with the subject, notes the limitations of using humoral theory exclusively as means of inquiry. Her remedy is to incorporate Aristotelianism, early modern theology, feminism, and twenty-first century positive psychology into her approach. The result is a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary inquiry into the nature of an emotion—happiness—that is both “found” and “lost” in Shakespeare’s plays. Through this focus, French illuminates the important role that women have played in shaping the ethical and social conditions by which happiness can be understood, not only in early modern culture, but in our own.